37 Comments

て form followed by て, 「見てて」Is it possible that it is a contraction of 見てと言いました。"I told you to look". If a child were to ask his father to look at something and the father ignored it, the child may say "見てって" to repeat himself with some emphasis.

Jan18

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Why is ローマ字 spelt without an ン?@Tsuyoshi ローマ can pronounced ローマン in english, hence why the OP's question makes sense, well to me. I think your comparison to “Why is アメリカ spelled without ボ?” is a little bit insulting.

Dec12

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Difference Between 修理 and 直すSlightly off topic, but isn't the chair example Kansaiben? I always thought that 直す used to mean 片付ける was Kansaiben?

Nov23

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Saying northeast, northwest, north-north-east, etcWhile your links answer the OP's question, links die, the contents change. When possible it would be great if you could post a more informative answer. It would also help the site SEO, as the questions/answers are picked up by google, etc.

Oct31

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When to use だ before と思います。As Daniel says, there is a pattern. イ-adjectives shouldn't be followed by a だ/です, while ナadjectives should be (optional in speech).

Except for pitch, what are the differences in pronunciation between Kansaiben and Tokyoben?I think you need to be more specific in your definition of the word pitch, and what it encompasses. I've never studied linguistics, so I don't know a lot of the technical terms, I didn't even know what a mora was until I looked it up. Anyhow, pitch can change in Japanese words on a mora-for-mora basis, I was pretty sure that this was called intonation. Could be wrong.

Oct4

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Difference between ながら, がてら and つつMaybe worth pointing out that when using ながら, the second half of the sentence is the main/important task. So your first sentence probably gives the impression that you prioritize eating over driving, and would translate to 'driving while eating'.

Where does the phrase 「ノリが悪い」 come from and what is the meaning?Apparently the origin is from Noh theatre, where ノリ is the term used for the counting of the rhythm. If you had good rhythm ノリが良い, if you didn't ノリが悪い. Which makes sense, as it basically means you don't fit in with the group, or your our of rhythm with the group.

Aug23

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Use of unit abbreviations in JapaneseI don't think ３０度 exclusively referes to Celsius. Obviously it's most commonly used in that regard, but it could also be used to refere to a temperature in Degrees Centigrade, Fahrenheit, or Kelvin. All in the context of the situation I guess.